Friday, September 9, 2016

Camping in Sleeping Giant 2016

I know, this is a couple of weeks late... sorry. The full web album of photos can be seen at: https://goo.gl/photos/n8WRLevGZZf5Jh3s9 (I'm posting some of my shots, but in the album you can see photos that Mandy took as well)


Sleeping Giant 2016



Day 1 - Tuesday, August 23
We left soon after Mandy got home from work after two days of planning and packing!
We would have got there sooner had I not gone past the turn off the highway to the park. It was 22km past before I listened to Mandy's admonitions.
Tent et al was set up pretty quickly and dinner was hot dogs and beans.
Dean set himself up in the back of the Aztek as he pretended it was a cafeteria and offered to sell us the ingredients to make our dinner. He then tried out his boil in bag penne pasta and with mixed reviews. After, Mandy and Dean went on a walk to the beach and met a deer, which can tried to hug.
A fire was decided against and we hit bed after teaching Dean how to play Yahtzee.




Day 2 - Wednesday, August 24
Morning brought a breakfast of oatmeal and Dean tried out his boil in bag scrambled eggs… definitely not as good according to him.
Then we thought we would go for a hike and wanted to go check out Middlebrun after uncle Norman’s recommendation, but somehow ended up at the Ravine Lake trail. Dean really didn't want to do it, but by the end loved it! It was hard to convince them both to leave their walking sticks behind.
After the hike we had a nice swim… very brisk!
Dinner was pizza on the Coleman stove and was interesting. Essentially a biscuit mix dough with sauce and cheese.  I offered to slice up hotdogs as toppings, but nobody was interested in that.  We could have put it on the fire, but we’re holding off on that for now.
After dinner was an evening lesson on astronomy, which Dean loved. We even went down to the beach to see what we could see (it was a little overcast, so not much) and it’s when I realized I had that Star Maps app on my phone still.










Day 3 - Thursday, August 25
Breakfast was pancakes … with bananas! We had a relaxing morning after the hike yesterday and Dean and I played three games in a row of Yahtzee which caused us to nearly miss when Dean's friend's family came in!
Dean was so excited and insisted we go on another hike… same as yesterday. After having gone once before Dean was now an expert. Even Mandy had better confidence and only slipped once.
On arriving back at the campsite we had a bit of excitement as a few park rangers were near the site with horns and guns and asked us to keep moving on and not go to our site as they “were dealing with… this situation”. Turns out it was a young bear that had wandered through the park and they were monitoring it and peppering it with paintball guns (looked like it at least) to keep moving it along.
Then we all went for a swim, even though it was very cloudy and windy… but everyone still had fun.
Dinner, again with Dean's insistence, was pizza again to show his friend (with less than stellar performance this time) and we made banana boats
Lighting the fire was tricky as I grabbed bags of pine wood and they were still pretty newly cut with sap throughout and were hard to light and get hot enough to continue.
That evening we learned about grossology… Dean loved that too (especially the video of a skunk spraying in slow motion). By the end he was very pooped.





Day 4 - Friday, August 26
Breakfast was pancakes again and was earlier than usual as Dean woke up at 530.
Pancakes we tried a s'mores version… but apparently only I liked it, or even wanted it.
After two days in a row of hiking we just napped and relaxed. A fox came to the camp site twice!
Greg and Nancy stopped by while Dean and I went to the park, where Dean finally made some new friends playing grounders.
We had some sausages over the fire (again, annoyed it took so much effort to get some fire going enough to cook them over… luckily they are pre-cooked).
After swapping some ice they said their goodbyes and we went in search of the evening activity of voyageur dances and bannock… but couldn't locate them and wondered at the setup of the Xterra event on the beach while Dean made more friends at the playground equipment.
At night we made sure Dean was going to be warm as we wrapped my old sleeping blanket inside his new one… it seemed to work as we found him in the morning on the ground and he didn't say he was cold.





Day 5 - Saturday, August 27
We wanted to be up soon as the day's activity was making dream catchers, and since Dean saw one on the “We Bare Bears” show, he wanted to make one. We got there and somehow I ended up making 2 and Dean only had provided input and not any sweat equity.
The races had started and so we avoided the beach as it was going to be very busy, but by noon Dean wanted to go play with his new friends and so we let him.
My anxiety was starting to raise as I had heard there was to be a storm. I REALLY don't like camping wet. So I started to pack things away under vestibules, in the truck, etc… don’t want anything getting we that could be avoided.  There was some debate about going home, but Mandy persisted that we should ‘tough it out’ and we did.
It only rained a little bit, and lightly through the night.



Day 6 - Sunday, August 28
So we woke up and things were wet… but it had stopped raining.  We made a meagre breakfast (trying not to disrupt how most things were put away already) and I set about taking the tents down and getting them on a rope to dry off.
Mandy and Dean went on a little adventure to see about making ‘pressed flowers’ while I monitored the progress of the drying, putting away in the truck what I could.
Funny how even after 5 nights the amount in the truck didn’t seem to go down all that much for how much was crammed in there.  Ah well… got it all in and drove on home to unpack the tents again to ensure they’re all dry as possible.

Another camping trip completed and can’t wait ‘till the next.  Dean noticed a little tiny tent and asked about it and I said I have a small one that he and I could use if we wanted to go on a hike and camp together.  He hasn’t said he’s wanted to do that yet…

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